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Diffuse Panbronchiolitis : Clinical Significance of High-resolution CT and Radioaerosol Scan Manifestations (미만성 범세기관지염에서 흉부 고해상도 전산화 단층촬영의 임상적의의 및 폐환기주사 소견)

  • Song, So Hyang;Kim, Hui Jung;Kim, Young Kyoon;Moon, Hwa Sik;Song, Jeong Sup;Park, Sung Hak;Kim, Hak Hee;Chung, Soo Kyo
    • Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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    • v.44 no.1
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    • pp.124-135
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    • 1997
  • Background : Diffuse panbronchiolitis(DPB) is a disease characterized clinically by chronic cough, expectoration and dyspnea; and histologically by chronic inflammation localized mainly in the region of the respiratory bronchiole. It is prevalent in Japanese, but is known to be rare in Americans and Europians. Only a few cases in Chinese, Italians, North Americans and Koreans have been reported. It is diagnosed by characteristic clinical, radiological and pathologic features. High-resolution CT(HRCT) is known to be valuable in the study of the disease process and response to therapy in DPB. To our knowledge, there has been no correlation of its appearance on HRCT with the severity of the disease process, and radioaerosol scan(RAS) of the lung has not previously been used for the diagnosis of DPB. Method : During recent two years we have found 12 cases of DPB in Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital, Catholic University Medical College. We analysed the clinical characteristics, compared HRCT classifications with clinical stages of DPB, and determined characteristic RAS manifestations of DPB. Results : 1. The ages ranged from 31 to 83 years old(mean 54.5 years old), and male female ratio was 4:8. 75%(9/12) of patients had paranasal sinusitis, and only one patient was a smoker. 2. The patients were assigned to one of three clinical stages of DPB on the basis of clinical findings, sputum bacterology and arterial blood gas analysis. of 12 cases, 5 were in the first stage, 4 were in the second stage, and 3 were in the third stage. In most of the patients, pulmonary function tests showed marked obstructive and slight restrictive impairments. Sputum culture yielded P.aeruginosa in 3 cases of our 12 cases, K.pneumoniae in 2 cases, H.influenzae in 2 cases, and S.aureus in 2 cases. 3. Of 12 patients, none had stage I characteristics as classified on HRCT scans, 4 had slage II findings, 5 had stage III findings, and 3 had stage IV characteristics. 4. We peformed RAS in 7 of 12 patients With DPB. In 71.4% (5/7) of the patients, RAS showed mottled aerosol deposits characteristically in the transitional and intermediary airways with peripheral airspace defects, which contrasted sharply with central aerosol deposition of COPD. 5. There were significant correlations between HRCT stages and clinical stages(r= 0.614, P < 0.05), between HRCT types and Pa02(r= -0.614, P < 0.05), and between HRCT types and ESR(r= 0.618, P < 0.01). Conclusion : The HRCT classifications correspond well to the clinical stage. Therfore in the examination of patients with DPB, HRCT is useful in the evaluation of both the location and severity of the lesions. Also, RAS apears to be a convenient, noninvasive and useful diagnostic method of DPB.

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Studies on the Virus in Silkworm Bombyx mori L. -Resistance to Virus Disease- (가잠 Virus에 관한 연구 -저항성에 관한 기초조사-)

  • 박광의;강석권
    • Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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    • v.9
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    • pp.67-87
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    • 1969
  • 1. Objectives and Importance. Many silkworms have been damaged by nuclear polyhedrosis virus diseases thoughout the country every year causing a decease in cocoon production by approximately ten per cent per year. The damage caused by the infections virus has occured in spite of complete disinfection. In this respect, it is well known it is impossible, at the present time, to protect the silkworm from these virus infections through chemical and physical control methods. Therefore, this author has attempted to solve this urgent problem from the view point of heredity and breeding, discovering the different resistances and heritabilities among 120 stains collected from throughout the country, and selecting the ones with highest resistance for the basic materials in the silkworm breeding. 2. Results of work 1) The strains with strong resistance to the nuclear polyhedrosis virus diseases are N$_4$, N$\sub$15/, N$\sub$48/, C$\sub$55/ and Em. the log ED$\sub$50/ values of them vary between 0.799 and 1.611. The susceptible strains are N$\sub$20/, C$\sub$62/, N$\sub$76/, N$\sub$79/ and C$\sub$108/, the log ED$\sub$50/ values of them vary between 5.159 and 7.258. (Reference Table 4) The Japanese strain with a log ED$\sub$50/, value of 3.770 is the strongest, followed by the Chinese strain with a log ED$\sub$50/ value of 3.564. The weakest is the European strain with a log ED$\sub$50/ value of 3.3381. The direction coefficient of the regression equation of the susceptibility varies between 0.1 and 0.6, the uniformness of the resistance of the preserved strains of this country is comparatively low. The hereditary henomena of the resistance of each strain and the conerete method of its application for silkworm breeding main the subjects for later studies. 2) The content of water and ash in silkworm has not been correlated with the capability for resistance to the virus diseases(Reference. Table 8). but it is very significantly correlated with mortality rate (in common reaning). In the case of the silkworms which have just completed the fourth moulting the content of water and ash is not related to the mortality rate. In the case of the silkworms which have just completed the third moulting, however, the water( +0.326) and ash (+0.362) registered a high significance. The ash content in the first ($\div$0.520) and second ($\div$0.386) moults is highly significant but water content in both cases is not significant (Reference Table 7). 3) The No. 205 strain proved to be the best in character among the various F$_1$ hybrids. No. 204 was very good in strength but a little lower in cocoon character than the control. No. 212 was a little low in coccon character and mortality was average, but the cocoon harvest was the best among all the varieties offered for (Reference Table 9). 4), In short, the above mentioned strains which are known to have strong resistance to the virus disease are expected to provide basic data for breeding strong varieties. It is proposed that continued research should be conducted on the characteristics of various strains for a satisfactory preservation of various characteristics.research should be conducted on the characteristics of various strains for a satisfactory preservation of various characteristics.

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The Analysis of the Genetic Variance and Combining Ability in some Quantitative Characters by Daillel Crosses of the Silkworm, Bombyx mori L. (이면교잡에 의한 가잠의 몇가지 실용형질의 유전변이와 조합능력 분석)

  • 장창식;손해룡
    • Journal of Sericultural and Entomological Science
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.7-19
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    • 1985
  • The genetic variances and combinding ability of some useful characters were analyzd on sixty four combinations in the 8$\times$8 diallel cross using the four Japanese races(Jam 107, Jam 113, Jam 117 and Jam 119) and the four Chinese races(Jam 108, Jam 114, Jam 118 and Jam 120). The eight quantitative characters were the total larval stage period(TP), the fifth larval instar period(FP), the female cocoon total weight(FW), the male cocoon total weight(MW), the female cocoon layer weight(FL), the male cocoon layer weight(ML), the female cocoon layer ratio(FR), and the male cocoon layer ratio(MR). The results were as follows: The analysis of the genetic variance and the combining ability in the TP and the FP. In TP and FP, h2N was less than h2B. The GCA, SCA and RCA were at a high significant level. Hl/D and (Hl/D)1/2 ere large. The heterosis were small minus. E and D were large. The r was in the positive direction, because the recessive genes were mainly expressed as a short rearing periods. The regressions of the characters were passed below 0 point, because the characters in the TP and the FP were appeared overdominant. The order of the dominance in the TP of the parents were in the order of Jam 119>Jam 113>Jam 117>Jam 108>Jam 120>Jam 114>Jam 107>Jam 118, and that in the FP of the parents were followed in the orders of Jam 117>Jam 113>Jam 108>Jam 114>Jam 119>Jam 107>Jam 120>Jam 118. The analysis of the genetic variance and the combining ability of the FW and the MW. In the FW and the Mw, h2N was less the h2B. The GCA and SCA were large but RCA was little. Hl/D and (Hl/D)1/2 in the parents were large. Heterosis was large. E was appeared large in the FW, and small in the MW. D was small. The r was of the minus direction, because the dominance genes were less expressed. The regression of the these characters were padded below 0 point, because the characters in FW and MW were appeared overdominant. The orders of the dominance in the FW of the parents were as the order of Jam 107>Jam 108>Jam 119>Jam 113>Jam 114>Jam 120>Jam 117>Jam 118, and in the MW of them in the order of Jam 114>Jam 120>Jam 108>Jam 113>Jam 107>Jam 119>Jam 117>Jam 118. The analysis of the genetic variance and the combining ability of the FL and ML. In the FL and the ML, h2N was less than h2B. GCA and SCA were large. RCA was little. Hl/D and (Hl/D)1/2 ere large. Heterosis was large. The r was in the negative direction, because the dominance genes were less expressed. The regression of the characters of FL and ML were appeared overdominant. The dominance in the FL of parents ere in the order of Jam 120>Jam 114>Jam 119>Jam 119>Jam 118>Jam 107>Jam 117>Jam 113, and the ML of them in the order of Jam 114>Jam 108>Jam 120>Jam 117>Jam 118>Jam 107>Jam 119>Jam 113. The analysis of the genetic variance and combining ability of the FR and the MR. In the FR and the Mr, h2N was less than h2B. GCA was large. The SCA and RCA were little. In the FW, Hl/D was large but (Hl/D)1/2 was a little. In MR, Hl/D and (Hl/D)1/2 both were a littel. Heterosis was a little. E in the FR was in the negative direction, because the dominance genes were less expressed but that in the MR was the positive direction because the recessive genes were mainly expressed. The order of the dominance in the FR of the parents were in the order of Jam 117>Jam 114>Jam 108>Jam 120>Jam 118>Jam 119>Jam 107>Jam 113 and that in the MR these were in the order of Jam 114>Jam 117>Jam 108>Jam 118>Jam 107>Jam 119>Jam 120.

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A Case Study on Application of the Menu Engineering Technique in Government Offices Contract Foodservice (관공서급식소의 메뉴엔지니어링기법을 적용한 메뉴분석 사례연구)

  • Rho, Sung-Yoon
    • Journal of Nutrition and Health
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    • v.42 no.1
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    • pp.78-96
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    • 2009
  • The purpose of this study was to analyze and evaluate the menu served in government offices foodservice by using Kasavana & Smith's Menu-Engineering. Sales and food costs were collected from the daily sales reports for a year from Jan 2 to Dec 31 in 2007. Calculation for menu analysis and customer's data were done by computer using the MS 2003 Excel spreadsheet program and SPSS 12.0 package program. Menu mix% (MM%) and unit contribution margin were used as variables by Kasavana & Smith. Four possible classifications by Menu-Engineering technique were turned out as 'STAR', 'PLOWHORSE', 'PUZZLE', 'DOG'. The main menus served during a year were 128 dishes and about 141 peoples visited this restaurant daily. The mean age of the men was $44.1\;{\pm}\;6.3$, women were $32.7\;{\pm}\;6.4$ and showed that was statistically higher than that of women (p < .0001). The rates of STAR menus were 'Western style (75.0%)', 'guk/tang-ryu (48.1%)', 'jjigae/ jeongol-ryu (23.1%)', 'bap-ryu (17.2%)' in sequence. There were no STAR menus in gui/jorim/jjim-ryu. PLOWHORSE menus were 'gui-ryu (75.0%)', 'guk/tang-ryu (29.6%)', 'bap-ryu (27.6%)' in sequence. There were no PUZZLE or DOG menus in 'jjigae/jeongol-ryu'. PUZZLE menus were 'jorim/jjim-ryu and Myeonryu (each 33.3%)', 'bap-ryu (31.0%)' in sequence. PUZZLE menus were a lots of 'Chinese food (75.0%)' and 'myeonryu (55.6%)'. This study provides the basic data based on regularly menu analysis method applied the scientific menu analysis techniques in government offices food services, I'd like to suggest that the menu management must be done based on the necessity and result of menu analysis according to the seasonal and middle, long-term plans.

Publication Report of the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences over its History of 15 Years - A Review

  • Han, In K.
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.124-136
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    • 2002
  • As an official journal of the Asian-Australasian Association of Animal Production Societies (AAAP), the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences (AJAS) was born in February 1987 and the first issue (Volume 1, Number 1) was published in March 1988 under the Editorship of Professor In K. Han (Korea). By the end of 2001, a total of 84 issues in 14 volumes and 1,761 papers in 11,462 pages had been published. In addition to these 14 volumes, a special issue entitled "Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition" (April, 2000) and 3 supplements entitled "Proceedings of the 9th AAAP Animal Science Congress" (July, 2000) were also published. Publication frequency has steadily increased from 4 issues in 1988, to 6 issues in 1997 and to 12 issues in 2000. The total number of pages per volume and the number of original or review papers published also increased. Some significant milestones in the history of the AJAS include that (1) it became a Science Citation Index (SCI) journal in 1997, (2) the impact factor of the journal improved from 0.257 in 1999 to 0.446 in 2000, (3) it became a monthly journal (12 issues per volume) in 2000, (4) it adopted an English editing system in 1999, and (5) it has been covered in "Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Science since 2000. The AJAS is subscribed by 842 individuals or institutions. Annual subscription fees of US$ 50 (Category B) or US$ 70 (Category A) for individuals and US$ 70 (Category B) or US$ 120 (Category A) for institutions are much less than the actual production costs of US$ 130. A list of the 1,761 papers published in AJAS, listed according to subject area, may be found in the AJAS homepage (http://www.ajas.snu.ac.kr) and a very well prepared "Editorial Policy with Guide for Authors" is available in the Appendix of this paper. With regard to the submission status of manuscripts from AAAP member countries, India (235), Korea (235) and Japan (198) have submitted the most manuscripts. On the other hand, Mongolia, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea have never submitted any articles. The average time required from submission of a manuscript to printing in the AJAS has been reduced from 11 months in 1997-2000 to 7.8 months in 2001. The average rejection rate of manuscripts was 35.3%, a percentage slightly higher than most leading animal science journals. The total number of scientific papers published in the AJAS by AAAP member countries during a 14-year period (1988-2001) was 1,333 papers (75.7%) and that by non- AAAP member countries was 428 papers (24.3%). Japanese animal scientists have published the largest number of papers (397), followed by Korea (275), India (160), Bangladesh (111), Pakistan (85), Australia (71), Malaysia (59), China (53), Thailand (53), and Indonesia (34). It is regrettable that the Philippines (15), Vietnam (10), New Zealand (8), Nepal (2), Mongolia (0) and Papua New Guinea (0) have not actively participated in publishing papers in the AJAS. It is also interesting to note that the top 5 countries (Bangladesh, India, Japan, Korea and Pakistan) have published 1,028 papers in total indicating 77% of the total papers being published by AAAP animal scientists from Vol. 1 to 14 of the AJAS. The largest number of papers were published in the ruminant nutrition section (591 papers-44.3%), followed by the non-ruminant nutrition section (251 papers-18.8%), the animal reproduction section (153 papers-11.5%) and the animal breeding section (115 papers-8.6%). The largest portion of AJAS manuscripts was reviewed by Korean editors (44.3%), followed by Japanese editors (18.1%), Australian editors (6.0%) and Chinese editors (5.6%). Editors from the rest of the AAAP member countries have reviewed slightly less than 5% of the total AJAS manuscripts. It was regrettably noticed that editorial members representing Nepal (66.7%), Mongolia (50.0%), India (35.7%), Pakistan (25.0%), Papua New Guinea (25.0%), Malaysia (22.8%) and New Zealand (21.5%) have failed to return many of the manuscripts requested to be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief. Financial records show that Korea has contributed the largest portion of production costs (68.5%), followed by Japan (17.3%), China (8.3%), and Australia (3.5%). It was found that 6 AAAP member countries have contributed less than 1% of the total production costs (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Thailand), and another 6 AAAP member countries (Mongolia, Nepal and Pakistan, Philippine and Vietnam) have never provided any financial contribution in the form of subscriptions, page charges or reprints. It should be pointed out that most AAAP member countries have published more papers than their financial input with the exception of Korea and China. For example, Japan has published 29.8% of the total papers published in AJAS by AAAP member countries. However, Japan has contributed only 17.3% of total income. Similar trends could also be found in the case of Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. A total of 12 Asian young animal scientists (under 40 years of age) have been awarded the AJAS-Purina Outstanding Research Award which was initiated in 1990 with a donation of US$ 2,000-3,000 by Mr. K. Y. Kim, President of Agribrands Purina Korea Inc. In order to improve the impact factor (citation frequency) and the financial structure of the AJAS, (1) submission of more manuscripts of good quality should be encouraged, (2) subscription rate of all AAAP member countries, especially Category B member countries should be dramatically increased, (3) a page charge policy and reprint ordering system should be applied to all AAAP member countries, and (4) all AAAP countries, especially Category A member countries should share more of the financial burden (advertisement revenue or support from public or private sector).

A Study on Commodity Asset Investment Model Based on Machine Learning Technique (기계학습을 활용한 상품자산 투자모델에 관한 연구)

  • Song, Jin Ho;Choi, Heung Sik;Kim, Sun Woong
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.127-146
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    • 2017
  • Services using artificial intelligence have begun to emerge in daily life. Artificial intelligence is applied to products in consumer electronics and communications such as artificial intelligence refrigerators and speakers. In the financial sector, using Kensho's artificial intelligence technology, the process of the stock trading system in Goldman Sachs was improved. For example, two stock traders could handle the work of 600 stock traders and the analytical work for 15 people for 4weeks could be processed in 5 minutes. Especially, big data analysis through machine learning among artificial intelligence fields is actively applied throughout the financial industry. The stock market analysis and investment modeling through machine learning theory are also actively studied. The limits of linearity problem existing in financial time series studies are overcome by using machine learning theory such as artificial intelligence prediction model. The study of quantitative financial data based on the past stock market-related numerical data is widely performed using artificial intelligence to forecast future movements of stock price or indices. Various other studies have been conducted to predict the future direction of the market or the stock price of companies by learning based on a large amount of text data such as various news and comments related to the stock market. Investing on commodity asset, one of alternative assets, is usually used for enhancing the stability and safety of traditional stock and bond asset portfolio. There are relatively few researches on the investment model about commodity asset than mainstream assets like equity and bond. Recently machine learning techniques are widely applied on financial world, especially on stock and bond investment model and it makes better trading model on this field and makes the change on the whole financial area. In this study we made investment model using Support Vector Machine among the machine learning models. There are some researches on commodity asset focusing on the price prediction of the specific commodity but it is hard to find the researches about investment model of commodity as asset allocation using machine learning model. We propose a method of forecasting four major commodity indices, portfolio made of commodity futures, and individual commodity futures, using SVM model. The four major commodity indices are Goldman Sachs Commodity Index(GSCI), Dow Jones UBS Commodity Index(DJUI), Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index(TRCI), and Rogers International Commodity Index(RI). We selected each two individual futures among three sectors as energy, agriculture, and metals that are actively traded on CME market and have enough liquidity. They are Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Corn, Wheat, Gold and Silver Futures. We made the equally weighted portfolio with six commodity futures for comparing with other commodity indices. We set the 19 macroeconomic indicators including stock market indices, exports & imports trade data, labor market data, and composite leading indicators as the input data of the model because commodity asset is very closely related with the macroeconomic activities. They are 14 US economic indicators, two Chinese economic indicators and two Korean economic indicators. Data period is from January 1990 to May 2017. We set the former 195 monthly data as training data and the latter 125 monthly data as test data. In this study, we verified that the performance of the equally weighted commodity futures portfolio rebalanced by the SVM model is better than that of other commodity indices. The prediction accuracy of the model for the commodity indices does not exceed 50% regardless of the SVM kernel function. On the other hand, the prediction accuracy of equally weighted commodity futures portfolio is 53%. The prediction accuracy of the individual commodity futures model is better than that of commodity indices model especially in agriculture and metal sectors. The individual commodity futures portfolio excluding the energy sector has outperformed the three sectors covered by individual commodity futures portfolio. In order to verify the validity of the model, it is judged that the analysis results should be similar despite variations in data period. So we also examined the odd numbered year data as training data and the even numbered year data as test data and we confirmed that the analysis results are similar. As a result, when we allocate commodity assets to traditional portfolio composed of stock, bond, and cash, we can get more effective investment performance not by investing commodity indices but by investing commodity futures. Especially we can get better performance by rebalanced commodity futures portfolio designed by SVM model.

The Role of the Soft Law for Space Debris Mitigation in International Law (국제법상 우주폐기물감축 연성법의 역할에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Han-Taek
    • The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
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    • v.30 no.2
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    • pp.469-497
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    • 2015
  • In 2009 Iridium 33, a satellite owned by the American Iridium Communications Inc. and Kosmos-2251, a satellite owned by the Russian Space Forces, collided at a speed of 42,120 km/h and an altitude of 789 kilometers above the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia. NASA estimated that the satellite collision had created approximately 1,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimeters, in addition to many smaller ones. By July 2011, the U.S. Space Surveillance Network(SSN) had catalogued over 2,000 large debris fragments. On January 11, 2007 China conducted a test on its anti-satellite missile. A Chinese weather satellite, the FY-1C polar orbit satellite, was destroyed by the missile that was launched using a multistage solid-fuel. The test was unprecedented for having created a record amount of debris. At least 2,317 pieces of trackable size (i.e. of golf ball size or larger) and an estimated 150,000 particles were generated as a result. As far as the Space Treaties such as 1967 Outer Space Treaty, 1968 Rescue Agreement, 1972 Liability Convention, 1975 Registration Convention and 1979 Moon Agreement are concerned, few provisions addressing the space environment and debris in space can be found. In the early years of space exploration dating back to the late 1950s, the focus of international law was on the establishment of a basic set of rules on the activities undertaken by various states in outer space.. Consequently environmental issues, including those of space debris, did not receive the priority they deserve when international space law was originally drafted. As shown in the case of the 1978 "Cosmos 954 Incident" between Canada and USSR, the two parties settled it by the memorandum between two nations not by the Space Treaties to which they are parties. In 1994 the 66th conference of International Law Association(ILA) adopted "International Instrument on the Protection of the Environment from Damage Caused by Space Debris". The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee(IADC) issued some guidelines for the space debris which were the basis of "the UN Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines" which had been approved by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space(COPUOS) in its 527th meeting. On December 21 2007 this guideline was approved by UNGA Resolution 62/217. The EU has proposed an "International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities" as a transparency and confidence-building measure. It was only in 2010 that the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee began considering as an agenda item the long-term sustainability of outer space. A Working Group on the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities was established, the objectives of which include identifying areas of concern for the long-term sustainability of outer space activities, proposing measures that could enhance sustainability, and producing voluntary guidelines to reduce risks to long-term sustainability. By this effort "Guidelines on the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities" are being under consideration. In the case of "Declaration of Legal Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exp1oration and Use of Outer Space" adopted by UNGA Resolution 1962(XVIII), December 13 1963, the 9 principles proclaimed in that Declaration, although all of them incorporated in the Space Treaties, could be regarded as customary international law binding all states considering the time and opinio juris by the responses of the world. Although the soft law such as resolutions, guidelines are not binding law, there are some provisions which have a fundamentally norm-creating character and customary international law. In November 12 1974 UN General Assembly recalled through a Resolution 3232(XXIX) "Review of the role of International Court of Justice" that the development of international law may be reflected, inter alia, by the declarations and resolutions of the General Assembly which may to that extend be taken into consideration by the judgements of the International Court of Justice. We are expecting COPUOS which gave birth 5 Space Treaties that it could give us binding space debris mitigation measures to be implemented based on space debris mitigation soft law in the near future.

Electronic Word-of-Mouth in B2C Virtual Communities: An Empirical Study from CTrip.com (B2C허의사구중적전자구비(B2C虚拟社区中的电子口碑): 관우휴정려유망적실증연구(关于携程旅游网的实证研究))

  • Li, Guoxin;Elliot, Statia;Choi, Chris
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.262-268
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    • 2010
  • Virtual communities (VCs) have developed rapidly, with more and more people participating in them to exchange information and opinions. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. A business-to-consumer virtual community (B2CVC) is a commercial group that creates a trustworthy environment intended to motivate consumers to be more willing to buy from an online store. B2CVCs create a social atmosphere through information contribution such as recommendations, reviews, and ratings of buyers and sellers. Although the importance of B2CVCs has been recognized, few studies have been conducted to examine members' word-of-mouth behavior within these communities. This study proposes a model of involvement, statistics, trust, "stickiness," and word-of-mouth in a B2CVC and explores the relationships among these elements based on empirical data. The objectives are threefold: (i) to empirically test a B2CVC model that integrates measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; (ii) to better understand the nature of these relationships, specifically through word-of-mouth as a measure of revenue generation; and (iii) to better understand the role of stickiness of B2CVC in CRM marketing. The model incorporates three key elements concerning community members: (i) their beliefs, measured in terms of their involvement assessment; (ii) their attitudes, measured in terms of their satisfaction and trust; and, (iii) their behavior, measured in terms of site stickiness and their word-of-mouth. Involvement is considered the motivation for consumers to participate in a virtual community. For B2CVC members, information searching and posting have been proposed as the main purpose for their involvement. Satisfaction has been reviewed as an important indicator of a member's overall community evaluation, and conceptualized by different levels of member interactions with their VC. The formation and expansion of a VC depends on the willingness of members to share information and services. Researchers have found that trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in VCs and e-commerce, and therefore trust-building in VCs has been a common research topic. It is clear that the success of a B2CVC depends on the stickiness of its members to enhance purchasing potential. Opinions communicated and information exchanged between members may represent a type of written word-of-mouth. Therefore, word-of-mouth is one of the primary factors driving the diffusion of B2CVCs across the Internet. Figure 1 presents the research model and hypotheses. The model was tested through the implementation of an online survey of CTrip Travel VC members. A total of 243 collected questionnaires was reduced to 204 usable questionnaires through an empirical process of data cleaning. The study's hypotheses examined the extent to which involvement, satisfaction, and trust influence B2CVC stickiness and members' word-of-mouth. Structural Equation Modeling tested the hypotheses in the analysis, and the structural model fit indices were within accepted thresholds: ${\chi}^2^$/df was 2.76, NFI was .904, IFI was .931, CFI was .930, and RMSEA was .017. Results indicated that involvement has a significant influence on satisfaction (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.809). The proportion of variance in satisfaction explained by members' involvement was over half (adjusted $R^2$=0.654), reflecting a strong association. The effect of involvement on trust was also statistically significant (p<0.001, ${\beta}$=0.751), with 57 percent of the variance in trust explained by involvement (adjusted $R^2$=0.563). When the construct "stickiness" was treated as a dependent variable, the proportion of variance explained by the variables of trust and satisfaction was relatively low (adjusted $R^2$=0.331). Satisfaction did have a significant influence on stickiness, with ${\beta}$=0.514. However, unexpectedly, the influence of trust was not even significant (p=0.231, t=1.197), rejecting that proposed hypothesis. The importance of stickiness in the model was more significant because of its effect on e-WOM with ${\beta}$=0.920 (p<0.001). Here, the measures of Stickiness explain over eighty of the variance in e-WOM (Adjusted $R^2$=0.846). Overall, the results of the study supported the hypothesized relationships between members' involvement in a B2CVC and their satisfaction with and trust of it. However, trust, as a traditional measure in behavioral models, has no significant influence on stickiness in the B2CVC environment. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on B2CVCs, specifically addressing gaps in the academic research by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in one model. The results provide additional insights to behavioral factors in a B2CVC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures and relatively new measures. For practitioners, the identification of factors, such as member involvement, that strongly influence B2CVC member satisfaction can help focus technological resources in key areas. Global e-marketers can develop marketing strategies directly targeting B2CVC members. In the global tourism business, they can target Chinese members of a B2CVC by providing special discounts for active community members or developing early adopter programs to encourage stickiness in the community. Future studies are called for, and more sophisticated modeling, to expand the measurement of B2CVC member behavior and to conduct experiments across industries, communities, and cultures.

Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty of Mobile Communication Industry in China (중국이동통신산업중적복무질량(中国移动通信产业中的服务质量), 고객만의도화고객충성도(顾客满意度和顾客忠诚度))

  • Zhang, Ruijin;Li, Xiangyang;Zhang, Yunchang
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.269-277
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    • 2010
  • Previous studies have shown that the most important factor affecting customer loyalty in the service industry is service quality. However, on the subject of whether service quality has a direct or indirect effect on customer loyalty, scholars' views apparently vary. Some studies suggest that service quality has a direct and fundamental influence on customer loyalty (Bai and Liu, 2002). However, others have shown that service quality not only directly affects customer loyalty, it also has an indirect impact on customer loyalty by influencing customer satisfaction and perceived value (Cronin, Brady, and Hult, 2000). Currently, there are few domestic articles that specifically address the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry. Moreover, research has studied customer loyalty as a whole variable, rather than breaking it down further into multiple dimensions. Based on this analysis, this paper summarizes previous study results, establishes an effect mechanism model among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in the mobile communication industry, and presents a statistical test on model assumptions by using customer investigation data from Heilongjiang Mobile Company. It provides theoretical guidance for mobile service management based on the discussion of the hypothesis test results. For data collection, the sample comprised mobile users in Harbin city, and the survey was taken by random sampling. Out of a total of 300 questionnaires, 276 (92.9%) were recovered. After excluding invalid questionnaires, 249 remained, for an effective rate of 82.6 percent for the study. Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ coefficient was adapted to assess the scale reliability, and validity testing was conducted on the questionnaire from three aspects: content validity, construct validity. and convergent validity. The study tested for goodness of fit mainly from the absolute and relative fit indexes. From the hypothesis testing results, overall, four assumptions have not been supported. The ultimate affective relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty is demonstrated in Figure 2. On the whole, the service quality of the communication industry not only has a direct positive significant effect on customer loyalty, it also has an indirect positive significant effect on customer loyalty through service quality; the affective mechanism and extent of customer loyalty are different, and are influenced by each dimension of service quality. This study used the questionnaires of existing literature from home and abroad and tested them in empirical research, with all questions adapted to seven-point Likert scales. With the SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry (1988), or PZB, as a reference point, service quality was divided into five dimensions-tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy-and the questions were simplified down to nineteen. The measurement of customer satisfaction was based mainly on Fornell (1992) and Wang and Han (2003), ending up with four questions. Based on the study’s three indicators of price tolerance, first choice, and complaint reaction were used to measure attitudinal loyalty, while repurchase intention, recommendation, and reputation measured behavioral loyalty. The collection and collation of literature data produced a model of the relationship among service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty in mobile communications, and China Mobile in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province was used for conducting an empirical test of the model and obtaining some useful conclusions. First, service quality in mobile communication is formed by the five factors mentioned earlier: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. On the basis of PZB SERVQUAL, the study designed a measurement scale of service quality for the mobile communications industry, and obtained these five factors through exploratory factor analysis. The factors fit basically with the five elements, indicating the concept of five elements of service quality for the mobile communications industry. Second, service quality in mobile communications has both direct and indirect positive effects on attitudinal loyalty, with the indirect effect being produced through the intermediary variable, customer satisfaction. There are also both direct and indirect positive effects on behavioral loyalty, with the indirect effect produced through two intermediary variables: customer satisfaction and attitudinal loyalty. This shows that better service quality and higher customer satisfaction will activate the attitudinal to service providers more active and show loyalty to service providers much easier. In addition, the effect mechanism of all dimensions of service quality on all dimensions of customer loyalty is different. Third, customer satisfaction plays a significant intermediary role among service quality and attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, indicating that improving service quality can boost customer satisfaction and make it easier for satisfied customers to become loyal customers. Moreover, attitudinal loyalty plays a significant intermediary role between service quality and behavioral loyalty, indicating that only attitudinally and behaviorally loyal customers are truly loyal customers. The research conclusions have some indications for Chinese telecom operators and others to upgrade their service quality. Two limitations to the study are also mentioned. First, all data were collected in the Heilongjiang area, so there might be a common method bias that skews the results. Second, the discussion addresses the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty, setting customer satisfaction as mediator, but does not consider other factors, like customer value and consumer features, This research will be continued in the future.

Term Mapping Methodology between Everyday Words and Legal Terms for Law Information Search System (법령정보 검색을 위한 생활용어와 법률용어 간의 대응관계 탐색 방법론)

  • Kim, Ji Hyun;Lee, Jong-Seo;Lee, Myungjin;Kim, Wooju;Hong, June Seok
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.18 no.3
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    • pp.137-152
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    • 2012
  • In the generation of Web 2.0, as many users start to make lots of web contents called user created contents by themselves, the World Wide Web is overflowing by countless information. Therefore, it becomes the key to find out meaningful information among lots of resources. Nowadays, the information retrieval is the most important thing throughout the whole field and several types of search services are developed and widely used in various fields to retrieve information that user really wants. Especially, the legal information search is one of the indispensable services in order to provide people with their convenience through searching the law necessary to their present situation as a channel getting knowledge about it. The Office of Legislation in Korea provides the Korean Law Information portal service to search the law information such as legislation, administrative rule, and judicial precedent from 2009, so people can conveniently find information related to the law. However, this service has limitation because the recent technology for search engine basically returns documents depending on whether the query is included in it or not as a search result. Therefore, it is really difficult to retrieve information related the law for general users who are not familiar with legal terms in the search engine using simple matching of keywords in spite of those kinds of efforts of the Office of Legislation in Korea, because there is a huge divergence between everyday words and legal terms which are especially from Chinese words. Generally, people try to access the law information using everyday words, so they have a difficulty to get the result that they exactly want. In this paper, we propose a term mapping methodology between everyday words and legal terms for general users who don't have sufficient background about legal terms, and we develop a search service that can provide the search results of law information from everyday words. This will be able to search the law information accurately without the knowledge of legal terminology. In other words, our research goal is to make a law information search system that general users are able to retrieval the law information with everyday words. First, this paper takes advantage of tags of internet blogs using the concept for collective intelligence to find out the term mapping relationship between everyday words and legal terms. In order to achieve our goal, we collect tags related to an everyday word from web blog posts. Generally, people add a non-hierarchical keyword or term like a synonym, especially called tag, in order to describe, classify, and manage their posts when they make any post in the internet blog. Second, the collected tags are clustered through the cluster analysis method, K-means. Then, we find a mapping relationship between an everyday word and a legal term using our estimation measure to select the fittest one that can match with an everyday word. Selected legal terms are given the definite relationship, and the relations between everyday words and legal terms are described using SKOS that is an ontology to describe the knowledge related to thesauri, classification schemes, taxonomies, and subject-heading. Thus, based on proposed mapping and searching methodologies, our legal information search system finds out a legal term mapped with user query and retrieves law information using a matched legal term, if users try to retrieve law information using an everyday word. Therefore, from our research, users can get exact results even if they do not have the knowledge related to legal terms. As a result of our research, we expect that general users who don't have professional legal background can conveniently and efficiently retrieve the legal information using everyday words.